CHICAGO – A computer problem temporarily disrupted United Airlines flights at O'Hare International Airport on Thursday, causing long delays and lines for travelers headed out for the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

The outage affected all of United's computers at the airport and also caused about 100 flights to be canceled as of Thursday afternoon, said airline spokeswoman Robin Urbanski.

The problem with the check-in computers ran from 3 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., she said.

At one point, the airline instituted a "ground stop," keeping United flights bound for O'Hare grounded if they hadn't taken off yet, said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory.

She said the glitch affected the boarding pass system and the computers that tell pilots the number of passengers on board and weight of the plane, which affect how much fuel an aircraft can carry.

"You need that to take off," Isham Cory said.

The ground stop order was lifted shortly before 8 a.m., when the airline began resolving its computer issues, she said.

Because the outage involved United's ticketing system, the airline urged customers to monitor their flight status and check in online before they got to O'Hare, Urbanski said. United employees manually processed customers checking in, and self check-in kiosks were closed, she said.

At the peak of the problem, at least 1,000 passengers stood in slow-moving lines in the O'Hare terminal, and planes lined up on the airport's tarmac as new flights arrived and departing flights were held back.

O'Hare is a United hub, and the problems caused delays at other U.S. airports.

United passengers flying into or out of O'Hare on Thursday were being allowed to change their reservations for free, officials said.

Shahzil Amin said the computer problems caused his flight from Dallas to Orlando via Denver to be delayed for three hours, so the airline rerouted him instead through Chicago.

"I've had a lot of problems today," Amin said.

"I pretty much won't fly United (again)," he said.

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AP Airlines Writer Joshua Freed in Minneapolis and AP Radio Correspondent Matt Small contributed to this report.

NEW YORK – It's crowded. It's hot. You have to climb hundreds of steps to get there. And throngs of people can't wait to visit.

Unfortunately, many will have to. Tickets sold out fast for the July Fourth reopening of the Statue of Liberty's crown, closed since shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Aaron Weisinger, a 26-year-old from Walnut Creek, Calif., was one of the lucky ones. He will be part of the first group of tourists in eight years to climb the 354 steps, 146 of them up a narrow spiral staircase, to stand atop the statue's head and peer from under the spikes of her crown.

"The statue is very powerful. It symbolizes liberty and freedom," said Weisinger, whose great-grandparents met Lady Liberty's gaze as they passed through Ellis Island from Eastern Europe.

Reasons vary for why the crown has been closed for so long, and there are questions about the role terrorism played in that.

After terrorists leveled the World Trade Center just across New York Harbor, the statue was closed to visitors until 2004, when the base, pedestal and outdoor observation deck reopened.

In May, the Obama administration announced that the crown would once again welcome visitors, albeit cautiously. Starting Saturday, only 30 people an hour will be allowed into the crown, and they will be brought up in groups of 10, guided by park rangers along the way.

New handrails have been installed to help with the climb. Bags, both big and small, are not allowed. Only cameras and cell phones are acceptable.

The National Park Service says the crown remained closed since Sept. 11 because the narrow, double-helix staircases could not be safely evacuated in an emergency and didn't comply with fire and building codes. Tourists often suffered heat exhaustion, shortness of breath, panic attacks, claustrophobia and fear of heights, spokesman Darren Boch said.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., has pushed for years for the crown to be reopened, once calling the decision to close it off "a partial victory for terrorists." He said for it to be off limits for so long was an embarrassment.

"I've always said this was as much a failure of creativity as it was a failure of courage," Weiner said. "I just think they couldn't figure out basic things like limiting the number of people, for example, or limiting whether they can carry a bag with them.

"It's such a great experience for all the reasons why the National Park Service wanted us not to have it. It's great because it is cramped. It's great because it is hot. It's great because it's an adventure."

Boch insisted that fear of a terrorist attack was not the primary reason why the crown remained closed. The statue's designer, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, never intended for visitors to ascend to the crown, he said.

"We had actually looked at closing the crown even before 9/11, for the safety of visitors and protection of the resource itself," Boch said.

The $15 tickets to the crown went on sale June 13, and tickets for the July Fourth weekend sold out within hours. Four of those tickets went to Weisinger, whose girlfriend's parents are also immigrants.

"We're both in a situation where our parents and great-grandparents put in so much work for us to be able to live the lives that we do," he said.

So far, about 14,500 tickets to the crown have been sold, most of them for visits through the end of August. Tickets currently on sale are for visits in the fall and beyond.

Recent visitors to Liberty Island fondly remembered previous trips to the crown and looked forward to getting up there again.

Victor Smith, of Vicksburg, Miss., hadn't been back to the statue since he was 12. The 66-year-old recalled climbing the long spiral staircase with his brother and father.

"My older brother was 14 and we like to run him to death going up the stairs, but it was fun," Smith said.

Not everyone was so enthusiastic.

"I thought it was overrated even as a kid," said Christine Lancet, a 26-year-old park ranger on Liberty Island and a native New Yorker. "Personally, I'm not a big fan of a spiral staircase. It's very tight, it's very narrow, it's dark, you're not paying attention to what's going on around you because your concern is, 'Oh, my god, let me up to the crown, please!'"

But some said the challenge would be hard to ignore.

Carla Vergara, a 32-year-old from Buenos Aires, Argentina, was sitting on the green lawn beneath Lady Liberty with her husband, Damian, and their 8-month-old son, Manuel. The family was visiting New York for the first time when they learned they were a week too early for the chance to climb to the crown.

"We've been in the Eiffel Tower, we've been in the Pisa tower, we've been in the Vatican at the top," she said. "We are a little bit disappointed that we couldn't be in here, too," Vergara said.

Even Victor Smith's 63-year-old wife, Betty, yearned for a chance to climb and conquer.

"That's just like people going to the top of Mount Everest. You stand at the bottom and you can look up and think, 'Why would any fool want to go up to the top of Mount Everest?' But it's up there and people want to experience that, and so they risk their lives to do it. That's what life is all about, our experiences along the way."

ABOARD THE MELISSA ANN – Crewmembers hooted and applauded as the last boat in Honolulu's failed city ferry service sailed into another gorgeous Hawaii sunset to end one of the seas' best bargains for tourists and commuters.

TheBoat, for $2 or a public bus transfer, offered flying fish, dolphins and whales against a backdrop of Diamond Head and the Honolulu skyline.

A capacity 149 passengers took the last hour-long trip late Tuesday — more than five times as many as normal. Crewmembers crowded onto the bow as the catamaran sailed into Kalaeloa harbor and the captain blasted the horn for the last time.

Scuttled by low ridership and costs estimated at $120 per roundtrip passenger, Hawaii's short-lived version of the Staten Island Ferry has now gone the way of the interisland Hawaii Superferry and two giant island-hopping cruise liners that have abandoned Hawaii waters.

Two of the island's three boats were being lifted aboard a barge for return to Washington state Wednesday, and the third, still named Catalina Adventure from a previous assignment, was to return to California.

It's one more sign these islands settled by Polynesian voyagers centuries ago are now more friendly to planes, trains and automobiles.

"It's horrible. I don't think they gave it a chance," said regular rider Shari Kimokeo, who rode TheBoat for the peace and quiet it offered on her daily commute to a job at a downtown brokerage firm.

"We have water, but we can't enjoy it," said Lieu Morimoto, as she and her husband, Dale, basked in a glimmering sunrise on one of TheBoat's last voyages.

For nearly two years, TheBoat has been a little-used leg of Oahu's TheBus system, three 75-foot double-hulled vessels running six roundtrips daily, sailing between the Aloha Tower Marketplace and the growing communities of West Oahu.

The City Council ended the service, which had been subsidized by city and federal funds.

Passengers cite the lack of parking at both ends, early mechanical problems that led to cancellation of many trips, choppy seas during parts of the year that make for a bouncy ride, and military restrictions that prevented use of a much shorter route across the mouth of Pearl Harbor.

TheBoat's departure follows the loss of the far more ambitious Hawaii Superferry system, forced by environmental legal challenges to scuttle and send back one 800-passenger, 200-vehicle vessel even before a second one could be delivered. The Superferry was Hawaii's first passenger-car service with plans to serve Oahu, Maui, the Big Island and Kauai.

Now, the only interisland passenger service is by air.

Two giant NCL America cruise ships built especially for the Hawaiian Islands — Pride of Aloha and Pride of Hawaii — have also left in the face of heavy losses. Only Pride of America remains.

Oahu voters narrowly approved another transportation alternative — a rail transit system that will link Waikiki with West Oahu. The first leg is to be running by 2012.

Buses are being added to make up for the loss of the water commute, but many boat passengers say they'd rather drive than go back to the bus. The drive ordinarily takes less time than the boat, but a single traffic accident can lead to long delays on an island with only one major transportation corridor.

Besides the spectacular shoreline vistas, the hour-long voyage on TheBoat offered amenities not found on Honolulu's often-crowded bus system: a snack bar, free newspapers, tables for creating a traveling office, high-backed seats, wireless Internet and an attentive crew.

"I feel for the regular riders," said ship's mate Diane Harrison. "They're the ones who have to go back to the bus when this could have been a viable means of ridership." Harrison and other crew-members will be looking for new jobs in a tough market.

Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann said he still supports the idea of a city ferry and it could come back when it becomes more viable.

A poster aboard the last voyage had a smiling Hannemann saying, "Aloha! Thanks for trying TheBoat."

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On the Net:

Web site for preserving TheBoat: http:http://www.malamatheboat.com

Honolulu's bus system: http:http://www.thebus.org